


Simple Gifts

by missema



Category: Mass Effect - All Media Types, Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: F/M, Gift Giving, Love, Memories
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-31
Updated: 2018-12-31
Packaged: 2019-10-01 10:39:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,002
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17242763
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/missema/pseuds/missema
Summary: Thane reflects and gives Shepard a gift when she comes to visit him in Huerta Memorial. Set during ME3 and written for the MECC Secret Santa.





	Simple Gifts

**Author's Note:**

  * For [NilesDaughter](https://archiveofourown.org/users/NilesDaughter/gifts).



Thane Krios never expected to find another great love, so it was hard to find a gift for her.

There were a thousand little loves in his life, and they were the ones that made him go on when the worst gloom could have consumed him. There was such brightness in a sunrise that it couldn’t help but find his heart, or the joy of hearing an unfamiliar birdsong on a planet that wasn’t Kahje. The space between the breath when he finished his prayers and his heart’s next beat always felt like the difference between peace and calm and was beautiful in its nuance. He loved so many little things, but he had only a few great loves.

He could only count people among his great loves, though there were a few things he loved greatly, they were fleeting and unworthy of the title great love. Irikah had been first, had woken his body from the necessary slumber that he’d taken up to do the work he needed to do. Kolyat had come next, his child brought forth a new light into the galaxy, such possibility and hope. He hadn’t been worthy of it, but it had been among his happiest moments to become a father. When Commander Shepard pursued him through Nassana Dantius’s apartment, he hadn’t thought the end result of that meeting would be him finding another great love at the end of his life, but here they were.

He was lucky to have the time to reflect and do his musing. Thane smile to himself at that thought. His age and illness had made him much more thoughtful than when he was a younger man. Would that he could give Kolyat the benefit of his years, but they could never grow old together.

There were more problems than just his impending death, but foremost on his mind was access to Shepard. The Reapers had thrust the galaxy into a state of chaos, and that didn’t make for stable communication lines. War would ravage technology, could throw civilizations back hundreds if not thousands of years in their development. What right did he have to complain about his love letters not reaching their intended recipient when people were losing their lives left and right? And yet, he still wanted to give her these words, a few moments of peace that she could look upon in the middle of the storm surrounding them and smile. He wanted to give her something that would outlive him in this world, though not in her heart.

He would never meet her parents in this lifetime. They would not be able to have children physiologically, and he would not live long enough to adopt or foster a child. They’d never talked about it. All they had was each other, and this time, these few moments. There had never been a future for them, and he resented that fact, though he had asked for forgiveness for it. Their love had to live in the present, so he had to make the most of it. He had a gift for her today, since Shepard had messaged him and said she was on her way back to the Citadel.

Each day it grew harder to breathe, and one day soon, he wouldn’t be able to do it without a machine. He’d shunned that kind of life, the half-life of hanging on watching the world with no hope of getting well. There were a few things had had to do, and there was no better time. Barla Von was awaiting his call about some investments that he wanted to disperse upon his death, and he wanted to pre-arrange the sale of his apartment. Kolyat said he would not need it, that he would prefer to live in a place of his own choosing and not pay the taxes on the place. For Shepard, his siha, he had many things, though regrettably few of any real value to give to her when she arrived. Perhaps that was for the best, since her future was so uncertain. If the Normandy were damaged in the future, Thane would hate for her to lose things she cherished, though he did want to give her something. Today he had to wrap a gift for Shepard.

#

Shepard navigated Huerta Memorial as if she’d been there a thousand times. Her feet traced the steps to it easily, and she found Thane sitting near the window, taking in the view as cars zipped past. Her visits to the Citadel weren’t frequent enough for her liking, but the war had come to the galaxy in full force this time, no longer in border skirmishes and encounters with Reaper tech and Collectors. She almost wished for those days, but then again, maybe not. 

She still had nightmares about Aratoht. 

Thane smiled up at her when she came to sit down with him, and her heart was lighter than it had been in weeks. Without thought, she returned his smile, and something inside of her was soothed by it. This simple act of seeing Thane was like coming home for her. There was something magical in seeing your lover, your friend, and being restored in their presence. Thane did that for her, and she could only hope her appearances provided him a measure of reciprocity.

Kissing was more tame now, he couldn’t hold his breath as he once did for fear that the next time he inhaled it wouldn’t be enough. There were times on the Normandy where Thane had taken his time with her, showing her the depths of his interest and patience, the flashes of his humor and sweetness that no one else got to see. Thane’s careful, reverential intimacy had made her feel cherished, and that feeling endured even though their privacy did not.

She wished they could spend time together now, but Shepard had known what she might miss when she let the Alliance take her into custody. It was time she gifted Kolyat and Thane, because Thane would have tried to divide it between the two of them and Kolyat needed it more than she did. She loved Thane, so much that the thought of his inevitable passing caused a physical ache under her breastbone, but as much as it hurt she knew she couldn’t stop; she couldn’t stop loving him or him dying, and they were equally painful.

But now with that familiar amber glow in his obsidian eyes raking over her, making her wish they could adjourn back to his room for a very careful makeout session, Shepard felt that pain release. It was easier in his presence, it felt less like losing him because he was here, talking to her, reminding her that she was more than Commander Shepard and he loved every part that made her, well, her.

Thane was smiling at her, and Shepard lost her train of thought as she basked in it. “It’s good to see you again so soon, siha,” he said.

“Is it soon? It feels like I’ve been around the galaxy and back,” she admitted with a small grunt. There were so many problems, so much time spent ducking in out and out systems just ahead of the Reapers. There were nights when she was tired enough to fall down, but she couldn’t stop. Dr. Chakwas had warned her more than once about her coffee intake.

“I have something for you. I know I cannot give someone else peace, especially not with the role you play in this fight, but i had hoped to give some heartfelt comfort with this gift,” he explained. Her interest was piqued as Thane handed over a flat package. It was heavy but not with the weight of a datapad or a published book. The paper on the outside was plain and wrapped by someone not familiar with the skill of it. She almost laughed, not to be unkind but at the sheer joy of seeing a present wrapped by a novice after all these years away from earth, but she held it in, smiling as she pulled away the wrapping.

Shepard opened it to find a framed piece of art, a painting, watercolor by the look of it. It depicted a desert scene, one that Thane had undoubtedly seen in New Mexico. She had never been there -- they’d talked about taking the trip there together but that was impossible given her status with the Alliance at the time -- so Kolyat and his father had taken one last trip together to the human home planet to see the landscape that had so enchanted the artist Georgia O’Keefe. Thane had taken a liking to her work before venturing there.

“This is lovely. Did you do this?” she asked, and Thane’s nod was almost shy. 

“It was while Kolyat and I were in New Mexico,” he said.

“I thought as much. I recognize the colors of the landscape from holovids,” she said. She paused looking away from the artwork, away from him and closed her eyes to keep tears from falling. No one made her things, not presents, and she’d never held a paintbrush in her life. The words, ‘I wish I could have gone with you’, stuck in her throat. He knew that, they both knew it, and there was little to be gained from saying it again, so she settled on, “Thane this is beautiful, thank you.”

“Think of me when you look at it,” he said. 

She stared at it again, seeing him in the subtle shifts in the washes of color, in the way the brush was held and in how meticulously the details were painted. Sand and shrubs in the foreground gave way to mountain in the back under a clear blue sky. It was beautiful, and probably better in person. She’d have to go some day, if she could.

“I undoubtedly will.”

“I have only happy memories of you, siha. You’ve made my life better.”

“I love you,” she said, smiling at him.

“And I love you, siha,” Thane said.

#

He hadn’t told her how long it had taken to master the colors, or how many holovids he’d downloaded to learn how to paint. There were countless photos that he and Kolyat took of the place, and later those might go to Kolyat. This was just for Shepard, for her to have a memento of the trip she’d helped plan but wasn’t able to take. It was a souvenir of their love, and the time that they had to spend apart, and how he’d made her this token so she could be part of it.

She wouldn’t experience the sudden bursting rainstorms of the desert or the burning dry heat that wafted up in shaking waves with him. She’d go there after the war, if she could, alone and mourn him, and miss him. He knew his siha, and she would go to honor him and their love. She would see what he’d tried to render in paint with her own eyes and know the breathless beauty of the austere landscape and clear night skies that had so reminded him of her. She’d go to Kahje and dance with the hanar under their stormy skies with the bell tones of their singing bouncing around them and celebrate his life. Shepard would meet the drell priests and learn the words to prayers for goddesses that never heard their prayers spoken by human lips before, and she would do it for him, for them. He would live on through her, through Shepard the most famous and heroic human the galaxy had ever known.

Thane could only hope as he held her in the privacy of his room in Huerta Memorial that he had given her half as much as she had given him. He would never accompany her, but he would wait across the sea for Shepard, for as many lifetimes as it took for them to be together again. 

After all, Shepard was his last great love.


End file.
